Google Glass meet Google Goggles

Normally I appreciate diving to get away from people technology and I am not quite sure how these will make the underwater experience “freer and more pleasant”, but I am game. Seems like an interesting concept anyways.

Options I like

-3D camera with Bluetooth capability is pretty cool. Once I get back to the boat I can instantly upload my picture of Flipper getting fresh with my dive buddy to Facebook and achieve internet glory…or re-watch it in vivid HD 3D over and over again for my ongoing amusement.

– Heads up diving display: This might be a bit more information than I ever care to have in my mask, but at least I can feel like Iron Man for the duration of my dive.

-Super sexy design: I am not really one who cares about looks while diving, half the time I am elbows deep in sediments of whose contents are not entirely known (usually it’s better if I don’t know). However, if I did care… I would totally rock these. They are the Ray-bans of scuba masks.

Options I like, but am a bit skeptical of

– Critter I.D. Cam: There is no description that I can find of how this works without an internet connection, but if it did AND it was accurate, this would be the coolest diving gadget ever. Better yet, if it could do species counts and upload the data to a phone, I know a couple of scientist who would be first in line to get one.

-Buddy finder: Unless your buddy has some sort of signal device, I am not quite sure how the heads up display could pick this up.

– “Call Me Maybe?” Button: Yeah…this seems kind of gimmicky to me. I see the benefit of it, but it takes the fun out of trying to decipher your buddy’s Pictionary-esque signal job. Is he out of air or is he just doing the Harlem Shake? Not to mention…unless this is a full face mask…it might better be denoted as the “Telepathy” Button.

Options I could do without

-“Danger Zone”/Accident predictor: Out of the three “danger” metrics this mask supposedly quantifies, the only thing you wouldn’t be able to figure out for yourself would be the amount of air left in your tank. As soon as you jump in the water I promise that speed and direction of water will be an obvious one. And for quantifying “dangerous organisms”…that danger is one up for debate. I think the biggest reason I wouldn’t be down for this would be that I could see people relying on it. “Oh if this was a dangerous situation, my super high tech mask would tell me.” Needless to say I would opt out for this.

Though in general, the Google goggles sound conceptually pretty cool, I might wait till they work out all the kinks before getting my own.

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Alex currently resides as a Science Communicator for the National Park Service, where she inspires thousands a year to love the watery world. Alex earned her Masters degree in chemical ecology from San Diego State University investigating the effects of heavy metal pollutants on the chemical communication between organisms. In her “free time,” Alex enjoys convincing the public that Ecology is indeed sexy. With that goal, she is a strong proponent of unconventional science communication and extending the broader impacts of science to the general public using the outlets of film and social media. When she is not busy busting a move or filming her next rap video, she can normally be found frolicking through the California kelp forest.

Image recognition would take a lot of processing power and battery power. This seems rather far fetched without the goggles being much larger than shown. Besides, I usually do not consider a shark as requiring any sort of danger flagging. Sea urchins perhaps, I currently have a nice set of purple marks on my right hand from a night landing last weekend.